


Curufin's Regrets

by bunn



Series: Mandos [5]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Halls of Mandos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-22
Updated: 2017-09-22
Packaged: 2019-01-03 23:36:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12157107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunn/pseuds/bunn
Summary: Curufin, in the Halls of Mandos, writes of regrets he does and doesn't have.Five pages of regrets, written in a language no-one knows. I’ll parcel them up and give them to the Maiar of Mandos. Who knows? Perhaps I will have bought a little of my father’s time, which like his Silmarils is stolen from him and held by others who have no right to claim it.





	Curufin's Regrets

I have been told that I should write things down. 

In fact, they want me to write things down so much that they offer rewards, as if I were a little dog, to be tempted with a biscuit, or a pat on the head. Ridiculous. 

I am told that, should I write it all down, they will consider allowing me to see my father. 

Even more ridiculous: I want to see my father. I miss him. 

I will _not_ beg them to let see him. He would not wish that and very likely they would not permit it anyway. 

They decided to keep us apart because we obeyed only him and not them, when he grew angry. Of course we did: he is our father and our king: they have no right to authority over him, or us. No wonder he was angry, he, who is greater in achievement and in talent than any of these of Námo’s Maiar, who for all that they are older than Arda have achieved since its creation, so far as I can see, precisely nothing. 

But here is a chance: they are asking something of me, a request that I can choose to grant. 

And so like a good little dog, I am obediently doing as I am told. But they did not require me to write in any particular language. I wish them joy of finding someone in the Halls of Mandos, or indeed, anywhere in Aman who can translate Khuzdul: specifically, the mine-shorthand of Belegost. 

They might take these pages to Aulë himself, I suppose. He might be able to decipher them: he, the Father of the Dwarves. So be it. The idea of putting one of the mightiest of the Valar to work translating these banal ramblings is amusing enough that I shall take the risk. 

So. The Oath. Or perhaps I should begin earlier? 

The Silmarils. I do not know precisely how my father made them. Nobody does, save him, and he did not tell even me. On some things he worked only alone. But it makes no difference: if he had told me, I should not record it here. 

They did not only capture light: that’s simple enough. But to catch it in crystal that cannot be cut or marred or worn or even scratched, to catch every colour and nuance of _living_ light within the solid so that it continues to live, imperishable, immortal and yet still alive! That is the essence of them: unlike any other gem that has ever been made, or ever will be made. 

The Trees themselves were not immortal: they and almost all their light has perished from the world. But the Silmarils, those will go on, I venture, even beyond the ending of the world. 

When we fail and fall at last, when darkness comes and with it the end of Elves and all who are bound to Arda, I believe even then the Silmarils will endure, even then, my father’s work will shine on into darkness, whether the Enemy comes to triumph, or not.

It will make little difference to us, of course. Neither the Shadow nor the Valar are our friends.

My father chose his Enemy long ago. He saw him for what he was before Manwë did, when many of our people thought the Enemy had become a friend. My father was right. 

And so we come to the Valar, and the Oath. 

The Valar first chose to be the enemies of the Noldor when they intervened in our family dispute, stealing the authority of my grandfather the king, and taking it on themselves to banish my father. They had no right to do that. 

They made themselves the personal enemies of our House when they tried to stop our people following my father, and said that by his Oath alone he was exiled. 

The Oath, note. Only that. Not kinslaying then, not any armed rebellion. Merely for the temerity of calling upon the One directly to hear our words. What kind of father would forbid his Children to call on him? What just lord stands between a Father and his Children?

They set themselves against us once again when they forbade the Teleri to aid us. What just lord or king acts so tyrannically, to forbid kin to offer aid to kin in time of need?

And then they cursed us. We, the House of Fëanor, accursed by name, and all who followed us. 

I think I understand that better than most people. Or at least, I do now. 

The Valar were afraid. They feared the Enemy, they feared the terrible darkness. Fear made them angry. They were too afraid to strike back at the Enemy, who had brought them woe, so instead they laid their wrath on us. 

Long before we took the ships at Alqualondë, they laid their grief and fear upon our shoulders, upon our father most of all. Our Oath angered them before we ever killed for it. They tried to send us out alone from Tirion, and keep all our people back. 

They loved our people with a jealous love, that would keep us leashed and caged, locked in the dark. And they were more angry because we chose our own path, when they were too afraid to strike, although they knew it was their duty. 

I wish I didn’t know how that feels. To be too afraid to strike at the real foe, to hide, and seek safety, and turn all the power of your fear on someone else. 

But I do. 

Aulë, if you read this, know I understand why you did not come, why you did not aid us in our great need, you who we thought a friend. 

I understand. You should speak with Finrod, Aulë, to find out how it feels to be the one doomed to march out friendless and accursed against the darkness, when your friends are too afraid to do anything but find excuses for why they should delay. 

How it feels when your friends become angry, when they try to keep you from your sworn path. When they forge their own fear into a weapon that they use against you. 

Finrod might even forgive you. I hope he would. If he did, he might forgive me. 

We were not afraid then, in Tirion when the darkness came. Not really afraid, although we thought we were. I learned fear, later, so I know that fear in Tirion was a pale shadow of real fear. We were only angry. We had the strength to choose freedom and revenge because we did not know who we were fighting. We did not know of orcs and Balrogs, of trolls and dragons, of fortresses raised with the power of the earth itself.

We knew nothing of torment in the dark. Nobody had told us about that. 

Why did you not tell us, Aulë? Why of all the things you taught us, did you not tell us that?

We needed to know. 

My father said that we were not craven, and would not suffer from the fear of cravens. 

And now I am glad that nobody can read Khuzdul. Nobody will read this. If it were my father, they might trouble Aulë to read what he had written, but I am not the greatest of the Noldor; I am only his son.

I will write the truth at last: I was afraid. My brothers are brave, all of them. My son is brave. My father, of course, is brave. 

Not me. I was a craven from the moment that we heard that Maedhros had been captured, and even more when Fingon rescued him and I saw what the Enemy had done to him. I was afraid that they would do that to my son, to my other brothers. 

I was afraid that the Enemy would do it to me.

He uses fear. The Enemy. He uses it to take your mind and shape your path. 

We learned that, once the first escaped thralls reached us and we saw their broken minds, once we found they would follow their master’s call like iron to the magnet. 

It’s an easier matter to know that it is craven to be afraid, than it is to be fearless.

Maedhros knew I was afraid. That’s why he sent Celegorm with me, and put Caranthir on the front line instead. Celegorm is the bravest of us all. 

It’s fortunate that Celegorm in life never addressed himself to learning Khuzdul. He can’t do it now: learning is hard to do in the Halls of Mandos. They are built for re-examining old thoughts and memories, not for making new ones. So he can’t read this either. 

It’s something to have privacy in this. 

If Maedhros knew, probably so did Maglor and Fingon. I have nothing to say of Fingon, save that he is as fearless as Celegorm and no doubt finds me puzzling. 

Maglor said nothing to me, after Nargothrond, but there was disdain in his eyes. Easy for him to judge me, I who worked with my hands, I who only learned the ugly language of the Khazâd, instead of spinning airy Elvish words into song. 

He had no son to fear for, and he is fearless himself, or else how did he live on, when all the rest of us fell? Everyone agrees that he is the greatest singer of our people. Whereas I am far less than my father, less than my son, and in many ways the least of my brothers... 

There’s nothing new about that, and yet it gnaws at me. If I am honest, and why should I not be, here in this language that nobody can read, it gnaws at me a good deal. Maglor is my brother and I love him dearly and just _once_ I would like to break his stupid harp across my knee and make him face the truth instead of singing around it. 

I am instructed to write of ‘ _regrets_ ’. 

Difficult to do that in Khuzdul, in my opinion. I may have missed a nuance when I learned the language: I have neither my father’s skill nor Celegorm’s when it comes to linguistic matters. 

But I believe that Khuzdul has only words that mean paths taken and not taken, with no implicit meaning that includes self-accusation, or piling up woe upon one’s own head. 

Maglor would hate this language! It’s designed for getting things done, not for clever dancing around emotions that could be coloured in nine different ways, or lamentation for choices made that could not have been otherwise. I thought it ugly, to begin with, but now I would say ‘direct’. 

I shall make a heading in Quenya, so all can see I am doing as I am told. 

##  _Regrets_

All can read that, though I draw the line at allowing them to learn what paths I took and did not take, and what I think about them. 

My actions in Nargothrond, shooting at Beren jewel-thief, horse-thief and the attack on Doriath. These are the things I believe I am intended to lament, here in the halls of Mandos until the breaking of the world.

I do not lament them very willingly. 

Nargothrond. 

Finrod knew the Silmaril was ours. He knew the dance we had to dance together, our Oath and his, before ever we began. We swore our oath in darkness under the Shadow, and so did he. None of us saw where our words would lead until they were said and we were bound to them. 

If all of Nargothrond had followed him to Angband, what would that have done? Nothing. We proved that at the Nirnaeth Arnoediad: all our might was worthless. Nargothrond would have thrown itself at the Enemy, and in doing it would have broken and died, if we had not shown his people another way. 

(If Celegorm had not reminded them that Silmarils are only for the House of Fëanor. If I had not shown them my own fears reflected in their hearts.) 

I don’t _regret_ leaving my son there. That path was a hard one, for him and me, but he was safer there than he was with us. And he is safe still, with all of Middle-earth before him and our people around him. If there’s just one thing saved from the wreck, it’s him. 

Lúthien. If she had turned away from the Man, things might have been different. She could have chosen to heal the feud... 

Perhaps I can _regret_ that we held her against her will? It seemed then that she might be open to persuasion. Aredhel would have been more clear, and easier to understand. But that is not a sound justification. 

Very well, I will admit to _regret_ for Lúthien, for all that she could have cast us all into sleep with a few words, if she had chosen to. 

For all that she could have left her father for her lover and gone anywhere she wished with Beren. She had no need for the jewel. We did. 

I will _regret_ , too, that we were angry when we met them after Nargothrond although even now, I am more grieved that I lost my horse and gear than grieved that I struck Beren a blow after he stole them. 

And we come at last to Doriath: inevitable. All paths led there: to our doom awaiting us. 

Thingol did not want the Silmaril, he only wanted Beren dead. He could have returned it. He chose not to. He had no right to the Necklace of the Dwarves, either! He chose his own doom with open eyes, far more than we did. 

Dior could have returned it, after the Dwarves had done their work. Not to me or Celegorm, if that would hurt his pride, but we have five brothers who had done his father and mother no harm at all, who were his neighbours and guarded his borders for him. If it had not been us, it would have been the orcs. They would have been less kind than we.

He could have sent the thing to Maedhros, and bought peace and friendship with it. 

He could have. 

So much for those vain griefs: the path I took was the path ahead of me. Dior chose his own path too. There’s little profit in wishing now I’d chosen a different way. I wish _he_ had. 

A path I took that grieves me more than any of those is that I made nothing, really, that was worth remembering. Not songs, not Silmarils, not runes or stones: not fortresses or alliances or rescues. I spent all my art on a war that we could not win. 

I gained nothing by it for all my skill, and that was nothing to do with my oath at all. 

I have to smile at that. It’s better than weeping.

Five pages of _regrets_ , written in a language no-one knows. I’ll parcel them up and give them to the Maiar of Mandos. Who knows? Perhaps I will have bought a little of my father’s time, which like his Silmarils is stolen from him and held by others who have no right to claim it.

**Author's Note:**

> This series ended up joining up with my [Return To Aman](https://archiveofourown.org/series/727971) series, about Maglor returning from Middle-earth with Elrond. It eventually provides a resolution to the problem of having Feanor and his sons condemned to stay forever in the Halls of Mandos.


End file.
